MISSION

LISTEN TO: JULY 2007 - WOMEN'S RADIO INTERVIEW WITH CO-DIRECTOR JESSMAYA MORALES and FOUNDER KATHRYN XIAN

Our mission is to change peer culture in order to prevent increasing violence against women and girls through education, entertainment and positive representations of women. When girls experience sexual abuse, they more often than not do not seek help or call hotlines or tell their parents. They ask their friends for help, friends who are not equipped to handle situations such as abuse.

(Slam Champ and Girl Fest Coordinator, Selah Geissler)

Girl Fest will expose young women to positive role models, encouragement, and more choices on how to avoid violent relationships and occurrences and information on resources available to them for counselling, support, shelter and legal advocacy. This is an event to educate the community to prevent the rise in violence.

Marika, winner of Girl Fest's Girl Slam (Hawaii Branch)

Since women make up half of the population, when they suffer from economic or physical violence, the ripples are felt society-wide and through generations. Children, spouses, friends, co-workers and even grandchildren are affected. Police and hospital resources are overburdened, as well as social services.

The theme of this year's fest is stopping violence against women and girls. The goal of the fest is to:

1) create broad awareness of the contemporary economic and social issues that face women

2) introduce positive role models to young girls

3) create a venue for organizational networking on the subject to form progressive relationships by and between organizations that work in various ways to end violence against women and girls

4) inspire, entertain, and engage audiences with artistic and intellectual expression with a positive message

5) educate youth and adults through educational curricula and hands-on workshops about healing after abuse through progressive arts therapy, societal and individual prevention of violence, community resources, and positive self-expression

6) change peer culture to prevent future violence.

Girl Fest Bay Area has begun uniting young men and women, local small business owners, artists and other concerned citizens who are all volunteering their time toward realizing one mission: to prevent violence against women and girls through education and entertainment.

THE NEED

Provided by the National Organization for Women,
the U.S. Department of Justice,
and the American Council for Drug Education.

MEDIA

• Each one of us is exposed to between 400 and 600 advertisements a day. That's 40-50 million by the time we are 60 years old.

• In 97% of ads, a woman is either portrayed in a degrading way (e.g. "dumb blonde" a sex object, a whimpering victim) or in a narrow, stereotypical female role (e.g. subservient wife, mother, secretary).

BODY IMAGE

• 7 million girls and women in the US suffer from eating disorders.

RAPE

• 1 in every 4 women will be the victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime.

• Every 2 minutes a woman is raped somewhere in the United States.

• An estimated 84% of rape victims do not report the crime to the police.

• Within the past decade, rape rates have increased 4 times as fast as the total crime rate.

COLLEGE RAPE

• 1 out of 4-5 undergraduate women will be raped or nearly raped in her college career.

• Nearly 90% of all college women who survive rape know their attackers—they are boyfriends, ex-boyfriends, dates, classmates, housemates, friends or instructors.

• 90% of all college rapes involve the consumption of alcohol by either party or both.

• Female students are at the highest risk for sexual assault between the first day of school and Thanksgiving break.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

• Of all female victims of homicide in the US, 30% are killed by husbands or boyfriends, a total of almost 1,500 women each year.

• A woman is physically abused every 9 seconds in the United States.

LABOR & ECONOMICS

• Women earn 76 cents to every dollar men earn today; this wage is up only 13 cents from ten years ago.

• Sexual harassment is still a major problem for women at work; experts conservatively estimate that at least fifty percent of U.S. women will experience sexual harassment in their careers.